


Living on the Mend

by city_bright



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4557072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/city_bright/pseuds/city_bright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers the empty bed, the overwhelmingly silent nights, the way his whole body aches for her, and how much he loves her. </p><p>Post Be Cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living on the Mend

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up yesterday morning with Black Lab's Lonely Boy stuck in my head, and this is what became of it :P I'd love to hear what you guys think! :D
> 
> Much love to ohdarlingnicole for helping me and giving me some inspiration for the title <3

_You like to sleep alone._

He likes to sleep alone. Or at least he thinks so. Maybe he has slept in an empty bed for so long, that he has conditioned himself to like it.

But it’s different now. There’s a new kind of empty feeling with his bed, and he attempts to convince himself it’s not because of a certain woman, but it is. He keeps looking over, expecting to see her sleeping form, but instead, smooth sheets are in her place.

He thought he liked the other side of the bed smooth. But now, he craves it in her likeness - messy and colorful.

And he’s not sure how to get it back.

* * *

_I miss the way you breathe._

He wakes up in the middle of the night, like clock work. He doesn’t know how or when it started, but it just happened one night in the short time they were together. _Muscle memory_ , he assumes.

For a man who whole heartedly prefers silence to noise and talk, this is the first time silence is too loud for him. He thinks his whole mind and body has recalibrated to find noise the new silence. He actually likes this new change, but not tonight. It’s quiet, and it haunts him.

All he hears is his beating heart and his shallow breathing, but there’s something missing. Not just something. Her. Her breathing. He misses it - the way it flutters when she’s dreaming, the way she sighs as she curls up against him.

Her breathing lulls him back to sleep, but tonight, there is no breathing other than his own, so he stares at the ceiling, counting the beats of his heart.

* * *

_My broken heart becomes me...I’d sell it cheap to you._

He used to think there was no such thing. He’s a doctor, a man of science, and hearts don’t break. The heart is a muscle that pumps blood and oxygen through your whole body to keep you alive. There are no feelings to attached to it. It can stop beating, but it can’t crack or shatter to pieces.

But there’s nothing else to explain what he has, a broken heart. It’s unnerving. He’s never had one of this magnitude before - the sharp, tiny pieces of his heart piercing his body as it radiates from his chest every time he takes a breath. He can feel it in his finger tips down to his toes, and it consumes him like a wildfire.

He thinks he can get used to it, just like he’ll learn to get used to the loud silence and the eerily empty bed. He doesn’t know if this broken heart of his is worth much, but he’ll give it to her if that’s what she needs.

In the meantime, he embraces his broken heart. It becomes him, anyway.

* * *

_Do you feel something pulling you back in? Do you see something you wanna see again?_

He’s happier. He loves her. He realizes it now.

He hopes she can feel it in the way his shoulder bumps into hers and in the way he not so accidentally brushes her hand from time to time. He thinks if he does it enough times, she can see it when he smiles the smile he saves just for her and in the way his eyes light up around her.

He hopes it’s enough to keep her coming back and inviting him to see New York City through her eyes.

* * *

_I could be the one, I could make it up to you. Take me back, I’m the lonely boy who loves you._

He tries to fix it. He tells her about Andy to make it all right again, to get a fresh start. He tells her he loves her, confessing all the desires in his heart in the process. 

But, he’s standing in the women’s bathroom, watching the woman he loves slip away from him yet again. He thinks he should be used to people leaving him by now, but he’s not. It gets more painful every time, each time serving as a reminder that he is still not worth sticking around for. He really shouldn’t expect anything different at this point in his life, but he has changed and that _means_ something.

So, he desperately asks her to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building to give him another chance. 

And as he approaches the Empire State Building, he stops to look up, and he sees what she sees - the most romantic place in the world. He remembers the empty bed, the overwhelmingly silent nights, the way his whole body aches for her, and how much he loves her, so he walks into the building, ready for his life with her to begin.

He can only pray that she is too.


End file.
